CHRISTMAS!!

 Santa found us!  The kids woke up about the same time as normal however, I do think Josh and I were more excited!  It was quite a different Christmas for us, but so calm and relaxing with just the four of us.  We walked into the living room and found all of the presents from Santa unwrapped and sorted by kid.  They weren't quite sure what was happening, but pretty soon after they found their piles and wanted to play with everything!

 All Caroline asked for this year was a little, pink bunny!  And Santa didn't forget!  Santa was also the only person who managed to find a Gloria doll!!  He must truly be magic!

WOW!

 Santa labeled each kid's piles with a special note.  Caroline was SO surprised to find hers written with her very own picture of Clarice!!

 Cooper LOVES basketball!  Every time he sees a hoop somewhere, he has to run up to it and wants to play!  He got his very own that now resides in his room.  This kid can entertain himself for hours!

 I'm not sure who had more fun!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Christmas Eve was pretty quiet around here this year.  It was just us and was a little strange compared to other years, but nice to be able to start some of our own traditions.  We went to the early service at church at 4:00pm and tried to get these kids to pose for some pictures.  This is the best I got...

 Since it was just us and we had kind of forgotten about planning for something for dinner, we promised the kids we could have pancakes!  Red and Green pancakes of course!

Although we aren't in our own house, we made sure Santa knew where to find us and we definitely made sure to leave food out for Clarice {Rudolph's girfriend and Caroline's FAVORITE reindeer!}.  

Daddy and the kids left all of our visitors a note to make sure they liked all of the food and knew that they loved them!

Grandmother made sure to supply us with some of her "special" hay for the reindeer and Caroline sprinkled in M&Ms for them.  {A special tip from Santa!}

 And then it was off to bed!

Christmas with Friends!

My how things have changed!  If you would have told any of us several years ago that our get togethers would now look like this, we might have laughed!  But now two of our closest couple friends that we knew before we had kids, now also have kids of their own!  This year everyone was around on Christmas and didn't have any plans before hand.  So we all had a chance to get together and have a great Christmas meal while the kids played.

Caroline is a little older, but Keegan and Tristan are just about 5 months older than Cooper.  

The Lastovica's were wonderful hosts!

Our full table!  SO blessed!

These two are trouble!

Uncle Spencer sure is fun!

The Birthday Boy!!

So I usually make fun of Josh for making such a big deal about separating birthdays from Christmas.  Well this year I can absolutely say, it is no fun to have a December birthday!  With so much going on around our house, it was really hard for me to focus on doing anything special for Josh turning 33!!  I was pretty busy and had to take everything one day at a time.  We ended up having Doug and Karla and Joanna up here and were able to have a nice family dinner and open presents.  Then once everything was cleaned up, we were able to celebrate Christmas with them!

It was all Caroline's idea to surprise Josh when he walked in the door.  I had gone in my bedroom and in all of the excitement, Caroline pushed Cooper right off of her stool.  So we had a little bit of crying and a little bit of confusion, but all in all, I think he was surprised!  :)

 Poor Coop!

 Josh got some help opening all of his presents!

We had such a great visit!  Thank you guys for coming up here!

HO HO HO!

 My wonderful friend Melissa hosted a Moms Club Christmas party!  She did an amazing job and it was so fun to go back and see everyone.  Unbeknown to us, Santa was even there!!  The kids had a great time sitting on his lap and telling him all about what they wanted for Christmas!

 Cooper wasn't quite sure about Santa and stayed pretty far back.  That was of course, BEFORE he figured out he was giving out stuffed animals!  He got close enough with Dad to give Santa a fist pump.  That was as much as he was doing!

Even Lauren and I got a chance to tell Santa what we wanted for Christmas!

Silly Elves!

Its beginning to look "a little" like Christmas...

Caroline was really into decorating for Christmas this year!  Of course Josh wasted no time and started setting up the tree the first weekend we had in the new house!  If I had my choice, I would have probably skipped all of decorating, but once it was up, I did enjoy things feeling a little more like Christmas.

Everyone got to pick out their own special ornament this year.  Caroline chose a white kitty with a pink collar and feathers, Cooper picked a basketball, Josh got an ornament with 4 frogs on it and my choice was a silver frame with 2012 written on it.  

Every year I say we're going to have a "pretty" tree and every year we go back to the same old ornaments we have.  One day I'll have my tree!  Sigh...